P  S 
3525 

A5326 
A64 
1900 
MAIN 


IRLF 


GIFT  OF 


U.  a  BERKELEY  UBRARIES 


|N  AGE  OF 

REASON  #  <# 


FRANCISCO 
CAT.. 


F.  P.  MANN,  M.  D. 


A  *.v*"»x  *  ,    ,  •   ' 

•^  ,    .  >  ••••••  '.'.•  >*,  ;  ?  :;> 

TJNIVE£S$;I  |V:'  V:' 

P53S2S 
AS3Z.6? 

AN   AGE   OF   REASON  A64 


BY  F.  P.  MANN,  M.  D. 


Wake !  and  behold  the  coming  of  the  dawn, 
That  ushers  in  the  all-auspicious  morn, 
The  day  of  culture  and  the  age  of  thought, 
When  what  opposes  reason  shall  be  naught. 
As  when  the  lion,  issuing  from  his  lair, 
Snuffs  the  fresh  fragrance  of  the  dewy  air, 
Lifts  his  head  proudly,  shakes  his  flowing  mane, 
Feels  himself  monarch  of  the  wood  and  plain; 
So  man  unshackled,  freed  from  slavish  pelf, 
Shall  learn  to  think  and  reason  for  himself; 
Shall  draw  from  nature,  and  from  nature's  laws, 
Her  closest  secrets,  and  their  hidden  cause. 
All  hail!  Supernal  reason;  Godlike  gift; 
Thou  art  enthroned  in  man,  and  thou  dost  lift 
Poor  groveling  mortals,  clinging  to  a  clod, 
Up  to  the  contemplation  of  a  genuine  God, 

"62002 


n'age*<?f  reason  arid  the  hour; 
No  fancied  person,'  bit  afnug'hty  power; 
No  given  shape,  no  pictured  human  form, 
The  moving  force  that  rides  upon  the  storm; 
Force  that  controls  an  atom  or  a  world, 
As  when  from  chaos  molecules  were  hurled 
By  force  of  gravitation  once  begun; 
Moved  toward  a  central  point  to  form  a  sun, 
The  giant  mass  rolls  round  with  mighty  surge, 
Vast  rings  are  formed,  break  up,  and  planets  urge 
Through  space;  Creative  power,  centered  in  the  sun, 
Evolves  a  planetary  system,  thus  begun. 
Matter  and  Force;  here  man  must  pause, 
Veiled  by  eternity, — The  First  Great  Cause. 
Here  human  wisdom  bows  before  the  throne, 
Dumb  in  the  presence  of  the  Great  Unknown; 
Advancing  Science,  holding  in  his  hand 
The  torch  of  knowledge,  takes  a  bolder  stand, 
Poises  the  wondrous  tube,  explores  the  star, 
And  by  the  light  that  shines  from  worlds  afar, 
Defines  the  distance  down  the  mighty  slope, 
Divides  the  trembling  waves  with  spectroscope, 
And  from  each  ray  of  light  draws  forth  the  fact 
That  worlds  are  formed  by  no  Creative  act; 
That  everything,  from  molecule  to  man, 


Follows  fixed  laws,  not  arbitrary  plan. 

Nature's  eternal  order,  revolution, 

Points  out  the  method — silent  evolution. 

Go  read  the  lesson  in  earth's  hardened  crust, 

From  the  long  folded  strata  shake  the  dust; 

Eons  of  ages  mark  the  wondrous  strife 

Of  matter  struggling  toward  organic  life; 

The  protozoic  rocks  their  story  tell, 

That  first  formed  creatures  were  a  simple  cell; 

A  vast  connected  chain  the  strata  span, 

Whose  final  links  are  riveted  to  man. 

'  T  were  vain  to  harmonize  such  facts  as  these 

With  old  Theology's  crude  homilies. 

Fossils  of  past  ages  these;  behold  the  hour 

When  hydra-headed  Superstition's  power 

By  knowledge  is  o'erthrown,  and  shining  truth, 

Radiant  with  hues  of  everlasting  youth, 

Strides  forth  a  conqueror,  ruler  of  the  world, 

Bearing  no  mandates  from  Olympus  hurled, 

Nor  fulminated  thunder  from  the  fount 

Of  Jewish  revelation — Sinai's  mount; 

But  truth,  that  springs  from  nature's  living  source, 

In  never-failing  streams,  that  in  their  course 

Unite  to  form  a  torrent,  then  a  river, 

That  flows  through  time-worn  channels  on  forever, 


Meeting  and  mingling  with  that  shoreless  sea, 

The  boundless  ocean  of  eternity. 

And  man  shall  know  this  truth,  and  he  shall  read 

From  nature's  open  book  the  only  creed 

That  is  divine,  that  doth  embrace, 

In  its  far-reaching  kindness,  every  race; 

Christian  or  pagan,  every  nation, 

Shall  find  in  natural  law  their  sole  salvation. 

And  thou  great  center  soul  and  source 

Of  Life — fountain  of  creative  force, 

Parent  of  planets,  thy  transmuted  power 

Nourishes  our  earth  from  hour  to  hour. 

From  the  transparent  germ,  the  formless  moat, 

That  in  thy  beams  unconscious  float, 

To  man  himself,  earth,  air  and  sea, 

Depend,  material  God,  alone  on  thee. 

Well  might  the  Chaldean  shepherd  bow 

Humbly  before  thee,  even  as  now 

Millions  still  worship  thee  as  the  one, 

Vice-gerent  of  the  Great  Unknown. 

One  power,  one  force  in  ceaseless  flow, 

From  this  all  springs,  to  this  all  go; 

Transmuted  energy,  that  we  call  life, 

With  all  its  happiness,  and  all  its  strife, 

Is  but  the  force  the  Sun  God  gives 


To  every  protoplasmic  form  that  lives. 

The  sum  and  substance  of  our  final  trust 

Ends  in  a  heap  of  elementary  dust; 

Shades  of  departed  greatness  long  since  passed, 

Nirwana  won,  oblivion  at  last; 

Eternal  slumber  guards  your  silent  tomb, 

But  still  ye  live;  the  pregnant  womb 

Of  future  ages  shall  give  birth 

To  knowledge  that  ye  planted  while  on  earth. 

To  be  immortal,  to  outlive  the  shock 

And  wreck  of  decomposing  atoms,  and  to  mock 

The  forces  that  inaugurate  destruction,  change  the 

form, 

When  elements  to  elements  conform; 
To  thirst  for  knowledge,  to  achieve  the  fame 
That  knowledge  gives;  a  deathless  name, 
Girt  with  a  halo  that  shall  point  the  way 
For  struggling  thousands  toward  a  brighter  day. 
This  is  an  immortality  indeed, 
That  shall  outlive  the  wreck  of  every  creed; 
This  gives  in  life  and  death  a  recompense, 
Based  on  our  reason  and  our  common  sense. 
Out  of  the  elementary  products  of  decay, 
Almighty  force  will  mould  a  different  clay; 
Thus  from  remodeled  elements  there  springs 


A  thousand  varied  forms  of  living  things; 

But  once  disorganized,  nor  man,  nor  worm, 

Has  e'er  regained  a  conscious  form. 

Mind  force,  nerve  force,  are  but  the  same 

Varied  movements  of  life's  flickering  flame. 

Upon  organization  all  depends, 

And  this  destroyed,  the  individual  ends. 

Each  night  annihilation  proves  itself  in  sleep; 

When  this  is  undisturbed  and  calm  and  deep, 

All  is  blank  nothingness,  as  if  to  show 

From  whence  we  come,  to  what  we  go. 

Man  needeth  no  delusive  faith 

With  which  to  meet  approaching  death; 

The  last  great  change  that  comes  to  all 

Is  like  the  Autumn  leaves  that  fall; 

When  the  chilled  sap  no  more  supplies 

The  vital  force,  the  leaflet  dies. 

We  hold  the  terms  of  life  from  death, 

And  life  exhales  with  every  breath, 

Is  lost  at  last  to  mortal  sight, 

Absorbed  within  the  Infinite. 

But  man  should  live  to  elevate  his  race; 

Should  stamp  his  structure  with  a  lasting  trace 

Of  something  higher,  purer,  than  he  finds 

In  sordid  men  of  low  or  common  minds, 


That  dying,  his  bequest  may  be, 

That  which  should  live  eternally. 

E'  en  while  I  weave  these  scattered  shreds  of  rhyme, 

The  roll  of  ages  sounds  the  march  of  time; 

The  conqueror  comes,  and  with  majestic  tread, 

Strides  o'er  the  living,  tramples  on  the  dead; 

With  one  broad  sweep,  his  sickle  garners  here 

The  ripened  harvest  of  each  closing  year; 

The  sheaf  that  nations  grew,  a  blow  has  cast 

With  one  ' '  fell  swoop ' '  into  the  mighty  past. 

Alas,  the  sands  of  life  too  quickly  glide, 

Washed  by  eternity's  resistless  tide, 

And  as  Niagara's  rushing  torrents  roll, 

Swifter  and  swifter,  as  they  near  the  goal; 

So  as  our  days  melt  into  months  and  years, 

Faster  to  us  time's  rapid  flight  appears; 

The  flying  moments,  as  they  hurry  on, 

Seem  each  to  whisper:  gone,  forever  gone. 

Behold  the  morning  cloud  dissolve  away, 

Before  the  glory  of  advancing  day; 

So  man  returns  to  elements  at  last, 

Lost  in  the  azure  of  the  fading  past. 


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